Friday, November 11, 2016

A Basic Beginner’s Overview to BABYMETAL

BABYMETAL is taking on their third World Tour now. They have continued to perform a new genre of music which is mixture of idol songs and heavy metal. Therefore, there are some heavy metal fans that criticize their music. On the other hand, many famous artists express interests in them. In addition, some artists request for their appearances.

I suspect that they are getting worldly recognized from this. Also, BABYMETAL has been the recipients of famous music awards for two years in a row. Their popularity has no boundaries, for there are many fans all over the world. So I’m going to introduce BABYMETAL for you to keep up with their speedy popularity.

Who is BABYMETAL？

BABYMETAL was formed as a Japanese metal dance unit on the theme of “the fusion of idol and metal” in 2010. They were originally members of the idol group Sakura Gakuin and took part in “Juon-bu” (Heavy Music Club) as club activity.

According to KOBAMETAL who is BABYMETAL’s producer, the group name comes from the words “Heavy metal”. The word “BABY” has a cute image and by adding it together, it creates a new image of “heavy metal”, also hoping to create a new genre of heavy metal.

Recent Activities

In 2015, BABYMETAL received awards from UK music magazines “KERRANG!” and “METAL HAMMER”.

hey are the first Japanese award winners. They also released their 2nd album “METAL RESISTANCE” worldwide in 2016. It smashed its way into the Top 40 chart in the US Billboard Top 200, the first time in 53 years for a Japanese artist to do so. They also became the first Japanese artists to perform at SSE Arena, Wembley on April 2, 2016. They audience totaled 12,000 people. Now they are taking on their third world tour.

Members

This unit consists of SU-METAL, YUIMETAL, MOAMETAL.

SU-METAL (Nakamoto Suzuka) : Vocal, Dance (Center position)

The best features are her singing abilities and powerful dance performances. Since she was a graduate of Actors School Hiroshima and member of Karen Girl’s, BABYMETAL’s producer KOBAMETAL recognized her talent and created his plan of this unit which was to be centered SU-METAL. Although she seems to be very soft, her performances and glare are so outstanding that all fans get mesmerized by her. Her older sister Himeka is a member of Nogizaka46.

YUIMETAL (Mizuno Yui): Scream, Dance (Left position)

She is known for her emotional performances. Before she joined BABYMETAL, she had never listened to heavy metal music. However, she answered “I want to imitate Kerry King’s (SLAYER) performance” and has often mentioned SLAYER in interviews.

MOAMETAL (Moa Kikuchi) :Scream, Dance (Right position)

She is the most idolish member, although each member came from an idol group. She knows the best expressions and ways to show herself from her idol experiences. She always makes funny faces to the other member at their concerts and makes the audience laugh.

Kitsune-sama and their concerts

Kitsune-sama, means Fox God. BABYMETAL’ｓ activities are determined by his prophecies. They disguise in their personal time, and “Kitsune-sama” descends to the members during their performances. Therefore, there is no MC and their concerts are proceeded with narration and images which has a story taste.

Corna (sign of the horns) is well known by metal fans, but BABYMETAL uses the Fox Sign. They are not only cute but also their performances are very special because they have metal-style performances with head banging, playing tag which likes wall of death etc. For these reasons, you can see how many people are obsessed with the magic of BABYMETAL.

Kami Band

This is the band that plays in the back in their live performances. It consists of 2 guitars, 1 bass, and 1 drummer. Kami (meaning God in Japanese) band always has white makeup on and wear white clothing. They are also called into concerts by Kitsune-sama

Main support members

Takayoshi Ohmura (Guitar

He is a member of C4 and also a support band member for Marty Friedman

Mikio Fujioka (Guitar)He is short, so Kami Band members call him “Small God”

Former member, Leda（Guitar）He is a member of Far East Dizain. He performs with T.M. Revolution and DAIGO☆STARDUST

Hone Band

Hone means “bone” in Japanese. They only perform in karaoke musical performances and wear skeleton suits. Since the Kami band have been called by the Fox God, we rarely get to see them, but you can see them in the MV “DOKIDOKI☆MORNING”.

KOBAMETAL

He is in charge of the management and also the producer for the group. He is famous for being a heavy metal fan. Therefore, you can get the glimpse of metal bands’ songs, staging, and merchandise. This is probably one of the reasons they are so popular among metal fans worldwide.

For example, AKATSUKI from BABYMETAL is an homage to “KURENAI” from X JAPAN. A fan uploaded a video on YouTube which cleverly combined “KURENAI” and “AKATSUKI”. It is popular and has already been played over three million times.

Future Plan

BABYMETAL will be touring in the U.S. in July 2016. However, most of those concerts have already sold out. They have also announced a 2 day concert (September 19th and 20th, 2016) at Tokyo Dome. These will be held as additional concerts for their third world tour. Where BABYMETAL will go from there, only the Fox God knows! Check the world